Russian authorities say four suspected militants were killed in an operation in the North Caucasus region of Daghestan.

The National Antiterrorist Committee (NAK) said on November 4 that the suspected leader of a criminal group, Marat Makhmudov, and his three associates were killed in Daghestan’s western city of Khasavyurt, near the administrative boundary with Chechnya.

Russia's North Caucasus is beset by violence linked to an Islamist insurgency rooted in two post-Soviet separatist wars in Chechnya, as well as organized crime, political disputes, business, and clan rivalry.